The Hand-Painted Ducati Desmosedici GP Helmet

Ducatisti are nothing if not a passionate bunch. Ducati lovers worldwide are known for showing their displays of affection for their favorite Italian motorcycle in many ways, but Anton Henggono may have taken the cake with this one. What you see here is a Shoei X-Fourteen helmet Henggono designed to mimic Ducati’s 2016 Desmosedici GP MotoGP racer. And here’s the best part: there’s not a single sticker on the helmet. The entire design was hand painted by Henggono himself.

Wanting to replicate Ducati’s MotoGP machine onto a helmet was clearly no easy task. Henggono started, like he always does, with a computer simulation, before obtaining a Shoei X-Fourteen and going to work.

He fashioned the front of the helmet to look like the nose fairing of the DesmoGP, complete with windscreen. Through the clever use of shading he rounded off the edges of the fairing to mimic the angles and proportions of the actual bike. The top of the helmet resembles the Ducati’s fuel tank. Move to the bottom edges of the Shoei and you’ll find the DesmoGP’s frame and rearsets poking through.

It’s difficult to see in these photos, but a closer peek past the foot controls reveals engine details like portions of the valve cover for the rear cylinders and assorted hoses. Finally, when you get around to the rear of the helmet, you’re greeted with the business end of an Akrapovic exhaust pipe finished in striking detail. In fact, the attention to detail is what makes Henggono’s designs so interesting. Henggono estimates it took him about 55 hours to complete the helmet from start to finish. That’s fast considering the amount of effort and detail that went into the helmet. Then again, thanks to his day job as a graphic designer for Fox Racing he’s got all the resources he needs to get the job done quickly.

The helmet isn’t a trophy piece, either. Henggono regularly wears the helmet on his rides (granted, he also has other beautiful customs he rotates through). Now, I must admit I’m a bit partial to Anton. You might remember his name, as he painted a custom helmet for me several years ago that now sits proudly in my display case. While Fox Racing might be an off-road company, Henggono is no stranger to the world of MotoGP, having previously held the same position at Troy Lee Designs, where he helped come up with the design for the Rizla Suzuki MotoGP team and even designed Loris Capirossi’s helmet, among others.

But when he’s not busy designing killer off-road apparel (and, yes, helmets) for Fox, you can find him flogging his Ducati 848 through the hills of Los Angeles. If you want to keep up with his latest creations, follow him on Instagram.